


The Soft Light of Stars Falling

by TheBitterKitten



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Chaos Ensues, Dark Alana Bloom, F/F, Hannibal Keeps His Promises, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Margot is Margot, Murder Husbands, Murder Wives, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, The Immovable Object of the Murder Wives Meets the Unstoppable Force of the Murder Husbands, everyone's down for some murder, murder wives vs murder husbands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27573055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBitterKitten/pseuds/TheBitterKitten
Summary: “This—all we have... it’s ours, by fucking right. So Godspeed to whomever stands against us. Devil take the hindmost.”
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Margot Verger, Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Somewhere Between Breathless and Effortlessly Breathing

  
Alana could hate Will. Honestly should, really, but what she feels towards the man is somewhere closer to pity. Doesn’t quite get there.

He’s doomed, after all. Will chose on that cliff to be anchored to the sinking, bloody ship of Hannibal. Alana is certain that when the time comes, when Hannibal comes for her, Will will be close at his side. If she can't manage to kill them before she dies, Margot will. And so Will has taken up the martyr’s mantle of collateral damage. He always did tend to be self-sacrificing.

“What’re you thinking about, baby?” Margot is hot against her, languid and loose-limbed in their bed. Her voice is husky, sex-thick, and there’s that vivid soft glow about her she gets when she’s freshly satisfied. 

“Nothing important,” Alana replies, wrapping her arm around Margot’s waist and pulling her closer so Alana can kiss that coveted space between her breasts. 

“Bullshit. You never look like that unless you’re thinking about them.You're like a hangdog, judgy guardian angel,” Margot replies lightly, before she laughs and it’s like sunlight. She lets Alana work her over for a time. Alana is nothing if not capable, and she makes sure it feels good. Alana makes very sure Margot only feels pleasure, now, when she’s touched. Now and forever.

“Just a passing thought. It struck me that I could... understand Will turning to Hannibal, if it’s anything like between us,” she says. Margot lifts Alana’s chin; cool gentle fingers pressing up, bidding Alana to meet her gaze. She does.

“Of course it is,” Margot says with a little smile, as if it’s obvious, and her free hand grazes the whole skin between the scars along Alana’s hip, “Them and us, we’re a pair, just... star-crossed. Ill-fated. In an alternate universe somewhere, we’re probably all besties. Going for tacos and margaritas, trading gossip and obscure mythological references at intermission.”

“There wouldn’t be any stars to cross, or fate, except for Hannibal and that promise,” Alana says, drops her eyes to the bare sliver of bedsheet between them. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Margot hums, “And keep going; that’s lovely.” She’s unconcerned, sinking back against the bed, and shifts Alana so the other covers her with her body, lets Alana slip between her slick thighs like a viper.   
“You know we’re the final girl, right? In all the horror movies. We’re the one who sees the way to survive this, finds a hatchet somewhere, and has that look in her eye?”

“Not exactly,” Alana murmurs into her shoulder between kisses, hair caressing Margot’s skin, “We both slept with them, one or the other. If we’re using horror film logic, that’s a death sentence. And it’s Hannibal. I’ve never seen him... not get what he wants,” she says, stilling. It’s quiet, and small, envisioning her fate. 

“Baby.”

Margot has her by the shoulders, then, gentle as cotton, and Alana looks up. Margot’s tone matches her expression: affectionate but frustrated, indulgent and sad. 

Margot wraps her arms around Alana, rocking her softly, warmth enveloping her. She smells like sweetgrain for the horses and their spent lust and rain-washed ferns, and Alana’s heart might just break if she lets it.

“You and I, love...” Margot’s voice sounds from her chest. Alana feels a thrill low in her belly because Margot is never so serious as when she drops into her lower register, and Margot has named her _love_.

“You and me, we’re survivors. Survivors live. Survivors do what’s necessary in the moment and... and damn whatever comes after. I’m not letting Hannibal make himself into your bogeyman. I’m not going to waste our life peeking around corners and down alleyways. If— but I know they’re like us— I know that. They’ve fucked off to Cuba, or Antigua, or _somewhere_ , and they’re all wrapped up in themselves, orbiting each other. It’s probably just like us in New Zealand. And Monterrey. And Cardiff,” she laughs, “and Costa del Sol.” Her voice is low; so soft and sweet and open, recalling their honeymoon, their milestones, the sea changes of their life together. Alana can’t help but bend to kiss her; taste that sweetness in her voice and swallow it down as a ward against what must come.

Margot breaks the kiss, but not unkindly. Offers a placating nuzzle against Alana’s cheek as her voice grows firm, despite Alana’s ministrations. “You and I... we have work to do with the farms. And Morgan is gonna graduate from kindergarten, soon, and then high school and then college. He’s gonna celebrate his first promotion, and close on his first house, and get married with both his mommies there at his side to cry and embarrass him. I promise you that.” Her hands smooth over Alana’s hair, clearing it from her face, and trail down her back, over and over.

Alana has already been smiling, can’t help but sob at Margot’s conviction. She clings to her, fingers gripping tight in the dark golden brown well of her hair. Tears fall, just two, dropping onto Margot’s collarbone, pooling in the shallow there. Stinging hot at the thought and absolute dream of their life together; their life fulfilled, their tiny little infant boy all grown up, living his own beautiful life and with both of them in it. 

Alana gets hold of herself, wipes her face, and presses a deep and grateful kiss to Margot’s lips. 

“Okay, okay. Okay,” she says thickly, willing herself to be strong; to take courage.

Alana lies against her other for a long moment, holding her, drinking in her strength and the fiercely soft, gentle agony of her love. At length, she rolls off to gather herself fully, sits at her edge of their bed. Feet planted, hands gripping the sheets. She fights the urge to lie back down and dissolve into the soft purple heat of her other; nestle there safe and light, somewhere between breathless and effortlessly breathing.   
There’s work to do.

“Morgan will be up from his nap any time now, and we’ve got that meeting at 4,” Alana says, all business, thinking of their shareholders.

  
Margot lies there where Alana left her, laid out against the pillows. She breathes slowly and deeply; her eyes shut, long lashes fanned out against her cheeks. Her thumb moves across the shallow divot of her clavicle, collects the wetness of Alana’s tears in the ridges of her fingerprint. She puts her thumb to her mouth. She sits up after a moment. Looks down between them at the tangled damp bedsheets before she pulls herself up off the bed, crosses to where Alana’s sitting, lays her cool hand against Alana’s cheek and pulls her gaze up. 

Margot’s scars litter her body. They’re all Alana can focus on at first, even before the blushed pink rose petals, the many gentle marks Alana has left on her in the wake of the last hour. The scars burn white and ugly against her skin in the early-afternoon light streaming through the windows, but Margot doesn’t hide them. They are livid strokes boiling visible against her tanned flesh, but Margot doesn’t fold herself. She wears them, bears them but proudly with her chin high. Dares their enemies to dash themselves against her who has endured. Dares them to find anything but unyielding granite, a stony and impassable cliff-face of bone and sheer force of will. Alana stares up at her, wields her awe like a sword. She feels like a supplicant at the altar.

“We have clawed every stray scrap of happiness we have from an uncaring, impassive earth. Consider the odds, consider everything and everyone against us, and yet here we are. Look at us now. I’ll be damned to a cold hell before I let anything we’ve built together slip through my hands. Least of all you. This—all we have... it’s _ours_ , by _fucking right_. So Godspeed to whomever stands against us. Devil take the hindmost,” Margot says. She’s incandescent fire. Artemis bound but barely in flesh; that violent goddess of childbirth and the forest, carrying a full quiver of sharp and lethal arrows. Promising spilt and gushing blood, but not any, not one drop of her own. 

“It’s us, in the end. At the bitter end,” Alana says, and Hannibal, for a moment, suddenly is not the malevolent, consuming darkness hounding down each of their steps, but just a man. A fallible, breakable man.

“I’ll shower and get Morgan ready for the park,” Margot says. She lets her fingers linger on Alana’s cheek, but moves to stride to the bath with her shoulders thrown back. Alana is helpless watching her. 

When the door shuts, Alana checks her phone. Scrolls through texts, checks her email, reviews security footage. Checks in with the team posted. She runs a hand through her hair, fingers working through the tangles. When the shower’s free, she moves for it. Familiar, deep pain sinks jagged teeth into vulnerable flesh. It draws bright pulsing lines from her hips down to her knees and up even to her shoulders, never quite conquered by physical therapy. Any hope of it being gone was dashed permanently by her pregnancy and the complications at birth. She ignores it. The shower tiles are still warm and wet from Margot, the air thick with the scent of her shampoo and conditioner. 

When she’s dressed, and made up in her signature red— shareholders do like signatures— she heads down the hall to Morgan’s room.

It’s still dark inside the nursery, thick light-blocking shades drawn. The plastic stars dotting the ceiling and trailing down the walls glow faintly with a white-green luminescence. Margot is perched on the edge of his rocket-ship bed in a black leather skirt. She tenderly strokes his back and hums their waking-up song. Morgan is sleepy, but he rouses, turning to his mother’s voice. His curls sprawl wildly, and Margot combs her fingers through them. Once he’s fully awake, he clings to her. Margot looks holy like that, in the light from the hallway, cradling their child in her arms. When her gaze meets Alana’s over his shoulder, she sees her other before her; sunlight raining down on warm grass.

The park is deserted, thankfully, late spring feeling more like deep winter. All the playground equipment is laid out before them like undiscovered treasure. Morgan runs wild and free, touching everything. His little peals of unguarded laughter ring out high, catch the wind and sail on. Alana could sail with them. He takes to the swings, imploring them both to push him higher; and then the slide, down and down, again and again. The monkey bars— catch him before he falls— and the see-saw, the little dinosaur riders; and the telephones positioned across the playground to whisper secrets like _I love you_ from a child’s great and incomprehensible distance. 

Alana is happy and full; replete and brimming with joy. She breathes in this moment, memorizing the feel of the wind against her skin. She pushes away the ever-present feeling of sand draining swiftly through an hourglass; of a sword swinging in wide, arcing parabolas above her head, each rotation closing in just that bit more, fraying the rope holding it at bay thread by thread.

She opens her eyes to see Margot’s monster playing tag with their son. Morgan flees from her, screaming laughter as he hurls himself full-tilt under the slide and between the swings, towards Alana. Margot follows him with big, exaggerated arms held out from her sides, stomping legs somehow still steady in her heeled boots on the playground substrate, her pink lips parted in a wide, laughing smile: this monster only wants to give cuddles and kisses. Alana can’t join in the chase, but when Morgan clings to her leg, she wraps an arm around his shoulders over his peacoat, holds out her hand as a stop sign to Margot, smiling. “Here be named safe harbor, terrible beast. Thou hast no power here. Come ye no closer and ye may yet be spared our wrath,” in her best Medieval Herald voice. Morgan laughs, clings harder to her calf. Margot smiles and lets her arms fall. Holds them out to Morgan in an inviting gesture and drops a knee to the yielding substrate. “And will the brave prince give a hug to his lady mother?”

  
“What’s the password?” Morgan’s voice is as high as his laughter, sure and certain, waiting for the correct answer before he leaves safe harbor. Alana’s heart is suddenly stone as she curls a hand into their child’s hair. She can't stop herself from picking him up and holding him as tight as she can against herself, despite the pain screaming down her side at his weight. She breathes through it, ignores it, doesn’t let it take the smile from her face. Doesn’t meet Margot’s suddenly worried and careful gaze.

If Margot is Artemis, free and easy until someone crosses her, Alana is only Medusa: once grievously wounded, and now... changed; now slaughtering everything, sparing nothing, not even herself for fear of being wounded again. 

Margot, still half-kneeling, says,   
“I’m safe harbor, Morgan; your mommies sent me.”

Morgan shakes his head, laughing, “That’s not the password!”

Alana presses a kiss to his temple and murmurs, “Good boy. We know only to leave safe harbor with the password.”

Margot tries again. “The woods, waters, meadows and combes are lovely,” she says, extending her fingers. 

This one takes Morgan longer, but he shakes his head. “Not the password.”  
He looks down at Margot with something imperious and curious in his gaze, small pudgy fingers curled into Alana’s collar. 

Margot swallows, presses on, says something else closer to the password. Morgan denies her, a little more slowly.  
He buries his face in Alana’s shoulder, clings to her. None of them are smiling any longer. Alana’s heart breaks. She ignores it, presses another kiss to Morgan’s curls. “We know the password, and that isn’t it. We know it by heart.”  
“That’s not the password,” he whispers to Alana, like he’s acknowledging a terrible truth.

  
Margot tries again, a different variation with some of the same words. Closer this time, but not quite. Morgan shivers against Alana, something like fear and frustration wracking his small frame. Alana looks at Margot. This is far enough.

Margot doesn’t wait for Morgan’s rejection, and at last recites their phrase:   
“Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales, all the air things wear that build this world of Wales.”

Morgan thinks it over hard, takes a long moment to compare it to the phrase he has memorized even at four years old. He nods slowly, and moves to be let down before he stills, giving Alana a questioning look. Alana smiles encouragingly. “Yes, that’s it. Good job,” she says as she sets him down, allowing a wince of pain to seep through to her face when it is shrouded by her hair. Morgan dashes over to Margot and wraps his arms around her neck. "I wanted to give you a hug the whole time, Mommy," he says. 

“Very good job! You did so well and are so smart, and now we get to share this hug,” Margot says, lavishing Morgan with cuddles and kisses.

Alana doesn’t trust herself to walk without a limp, but she forcibly schools her gait into something easy and natural. She holds Morgan’s hand while Margot holds his other as they walk back home.

Once Morgan is regretfully entrusted into the capable, vetted-thrice-over hands of his doting nanny, Margot and Alana head to their streaming room for the meeting. Alana holds onto Margot’s hand for love and also balance, their fingers intertwining.

They take their seats beside each other in office chairs like thrones. There is no identifying feature of the room in frame. They connect by VPN, and the computer screen fills with an image where their shareholders have gathered around a long, wide table. Alana’s been in that room before, but not for the last twenty-three months. Discounting miracles, never again. The occupants are corralled by harried aides, fussing over water glasses, buried in their phones. Making idle chit-chat. Office workers compete to catch their attention and impress them, move up in the ranks. When their screen goes live, the room quiets immediately, all attention on them. The meeting drags on. After their opening notes, Margot and Alana sit back to watch one presentation after the next. Demand projections over the next fifteen years; adapting to a rising trend of veganism; the ubiquitous love of bacon in American consumer studies, how it might drive production or shape marketing. Options to branch out into dairy; potential versus risk for public trading on the stock market. On and on and on.   
Alana speaks briefly now and again, or Margot does. Sometimes both, soothing anxieties over change and tossing platitudes around about pivoting and the future and being on the edge of progress. Alana watches the faces on the screen. Rapt or guarded, they’re all hanging on her and Margot’s every word as if they’re from the sermon on the mount. Alana isn’t thinking of the meeting, or the applause at their closing statement. She’s thinking of the woman beside her as she’s naked, wielding her scars like weapons and blinding in her glory. They stand together and end the call, dismissing their court.

Alana feels like she can breathe again when she sees Morgan safe in Margot’s arms. The nanny blows him a kiss before she leaves. Alana tries not to begrudge her the affection. After all, Morgan is quite charming and their nanny has been with them since he was a month old and new to the world.

  
They celebrate the successful meeting with a rare dinner out. Morgan is still in a booster seat between them, the deep and secretive booth too tall for him yet. When the waiter introduces himself as Hank and fills their water glasses, Alana sends the name on to be processed. Margot gives her a disappointed look, but turns her attention to explaining the dishes on the menu to Morgan. 

The little boy is well-behaved for four-about-to-be-five, and an adventurous eater beside. He chooses the langoustine tart over the chicken.   
He quickly earns the compliments and adoration of their waiter. Alana reads Hank's background information coming through on her phone as they eat their first course, bread and cheese with truffles and herbed butter. 

There’s nothing of real note, but it’s interesting, as people tend to be: their waiter, Henry Albert Monaghan, attended university in England. Double business and theatre major— he must be following in mom or dad’s footsteps, scraping what joy he can find from whatever remains. Or maybe looking into directing a theatre himself; there’s a few productions with his name listed as director in the credits at the local community playhouse. He’s held this job for going on two years now, working his way up to head waiter and is being tapped for a management position when the current one retires. Lives with his partner of six years, met in university, and is an aquarium enthusiast, given the pair of tickets purchased for an Expo this past June.

Alana murmurs all this to Margot, in between doting over Morgan’s exclamations that the food is good and he’d like more of it, please. Alana feeds him off her plate, helps him try the caviar. He wrinkles his nose at the sensation, uncertain, but not totally put-off, and Margot gives him the rest of her cheese.   
“Dinner’s coming soon; don’t ruin your appetite, Bub,” Margot murmurs, and Morgan nods his assent, even as he devours the cheese.

Margot tolerates Alana’s paranoia, uses it to indulge herself in a favorite habit. She manages, in the gamine, savvy way that is utterly Margot, to hold a full-blown discussion regarding the parallel philosophies of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” and Lapine’s “Sunday in the Park with George” with Hank during the brief moments he’s managing their courses; bringing or removing plates, filling wine or water glasses. Margot never once lets on that she has the upper hand of knowledge, giving just enough that everything she says seems a product of their conversation. Alana smiles, privately admiring her skill, and busies herself with Morgan. Tipping isn’t required here, but they do anyway.

It’s Alana’s turn for Morgan’s bedtime routine, and she revels in it. They brush their teeth together in his bathroom, counting out two minutes with a song. Alana pulls her chair close beside the tub; kneeling is too hard. She sings sea shanties as Morgan sails and then capsizes a toy boat into the swarm of bubbles, and tells a story about mermaids and the survivors of the shipwreck as she rinses his hair.  
“And they made a life for themselves, there on the island, and made friends with the kind mermaids who saved their lives. They were very different. They didn’t even speak the same language. But the mermaids would bring them fish, and the sailors would drop little treasures they found on the island into the waves. Pretty flowers, or tasty fruit. They couldn’t ever leave, you see, but they were very happy.

Come on, time to get out.”  
She can’t lift Morgan up and out of the tub after his bath, given the park and her actions earlier. Instead, Alana offers a hand to her boy. He knows, and understands, because this has happened before. He takes her hand and climbs carefully out of the tub on his own. Alana wraps him warmly in a towel, praising Morgan for his self-sufficiency. She dresses him, and they cuddle together in his rocket bed, reading again _The Little Prince_. Morgan is sleepy against her, eyes shut and only half-listening to her reading aloud about Baobab trees. He’s fast asleep before ten minutes pass. Alana stays where she is for a long time; long after she stops reading and turns out the light on the nightstand. She watches her little son breathe in the dark, curled in against her with her arm around him, and maybe he’s dreaming by now.

She prays, then. Prays hard to a God in His Heaven; to Artemis, if she still roams wild and free and vengeful; to any deity that exists and is listening. To anyone who might protect this fragile tiny boy from all of the harsh world crashing in waves against the walls of their home. She prays that Morgan will still have this kind of rest and peace when Hannibal comes. That Margot, if it can’t be both of them, will be there for Morgan; with him in his life when Alana herself is gone. Margot is more than enough for the both of them. Alana prays that since she must go, her passing is as painless as it can be for her family. Hannibal is a demon, sure, but an efficient and polite one. Probably able to be reasoned with.

Alana would stay as she is, curled around and cradling a sleeping Morgan in his bed, forever. She would hold vigil through the night, if Margot didn’t appear in the doorframe, silhouetted by the light from the hallway.

“He’s safe, baby. I promise you," Margot murmurs softly.   
"He’s asleep and nothing, but nothing could get through what we have set up, so he’ll wake up in the morning to happiness. Please come to bed. I need you,” Margot says. She deeply means every single word, but they’ve done this before. 

Alana stays there for a minute longer, willing herself to believe her wife. She very carefully gets up, testing her weight on her legs before she trusts them to bear her. She bends, covering Morgan with his comforter and tucking him in tightly. She presses a kiss to his forehead and turns to walk out of the room, towards Margot. She smiles, more a crinkle of her eyes than a movement of her lips, and wraps an arm around Margot’s waist. The thick silk of her robe slides between their skin.   
She holds her close to herself, leans on her, as much for support as for the comfort of her presence and life and heat pressed beside her. She’s too tired now to mask the pain growling and licking up against her shoulders now, down to her calves, and smiles a sad, worn smile at her wife; a concession.

They make their way to their bedroom, Margot folding back the fresh covers as Alana carefully, rigidly strips and changes into pyjamas. Alana makes her way to the bath, sits in her chair settled at their twin vanities, and takes off her makeup. Margot follows her there, and brushes out Alana's hair with long, gentle strokes. She smooths her hands over Alana’s shoulders when she’s done. She offers her arm for Alana to rise, and Alana takes it. Neither of them acknowledge it as the mercy that it is.

When she’s safely in bed, Alana breathes, rolling over to watch Margot in the darkness as she slips off her robe and climbs in, curves caught and outlined in the dim non-light from the windows.   
“It’s been bad today. I’m sorry for that,” Alana murmurs.   
“I know. I get it. You don’t have to apologize, and I have my days, too,” comes the reply.

The next few moments pass in silence, except for the rustle of bodies settling, nestling into each other, and their shared breath. 

“I think about that night a lot.”  
“Me, too.”  
“Different reasons?” Alana asks.  
“The same.”  
“And if... if we had left them there, let them end there and gone on to do what we needed—“  
Margot cuts her off.   
“We did what we had to, gave what we had to in the moment to survive. I won’t regret that. I won’t let you regret that. And more than just us; at that moment in time, it was wrong. If we had let them die; if we had let Will be tortured and murdered, that would have changed us. Into something— something like Mason. Even with... whatever might come, we’ll survive. We’ll do it again.”  
Alana can’t find anything she wants to say against that. 

“Godspeed to those against us.”

  
The letter arrives on the last Thursday of Morgan’s school year. Alana gets a call from the school secretary at noon, when the mail is delivered, letting her know it’s there. She calls Margot at their office space, voice hard and thin, telling her the news, telling her to get home and stay put for now. Her mind is racing and she can’t feel her hands on the drive over, gaze boring idle holes into the back of her driver’s head. Her heart is in her throat when the secretary hands it over, gushing about the upcoming student recital and how it’s been just a wonderful year. Alana doesn’t hear anything once the letter’s in her steady hands, chats meaninglessly with the secretary about false holiday plans for the summer as she waits for the school aide to bring Morgan from his class to the administration office. She holds Morgan in her lap on the drive home, petting his curls and running through survival plans and safe houses they can reach in an hour or less. She texts the various teams at her disposal, trying not to overreact. It is just a letter, after all. 

Still, she texts again, to several numbers she has memorized, demanding any information on Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham; a tall dishwater blond man and a shorter, dark-curly-haired man, traveling together or in quick succession, living together with maybe a dog or three, possibly with unsolved murders and disappearances in their general vicinity, especially which tick up in the months after their arrival. It’s information she’s requested a hundred times over, with nothing but false leads and the occasional promising-- and thus surely false-- breadcrumb. Buenos Aires, the entire country of France, Italy, Greece, Havana, London, Florence, all of Russia, Tokyo, and Vancouver populate her texts. She sighs, pocketing her phone and holding Morgan closer to herself. She points out yellow things to him on the drive home, and he points out blue things. 

  
Margot is home when they arrive, nursing a single, shallow pour of Macallan and pacing a hole into the floor. She sets her glass down on the counter and gathers them into their arms, kissing them both, and shifts Morgan from Alana’s arms into her own as soon as she can. Alana feels the relief from his weight and the loss of it simultaneously. 

“Mommy's going to take you into the second playroom, and we’re going to spend the day together. Isn’t that a lovely surprise? Mama will join us when she can,” Margot tells Morgan, eyes on Alana, following their plan. But Margot hesitates. She captures Alana’s head in her hand, pulling them closer. She presses a chaste kiss to her lips, and it’s no less fearsome for that chasteness. Alana returns it. 

“Give Mama a kiss and tell her we’ll see her soon,” Margot tells Morgan. He does, leaning out from Margot as he kisses her cheek. 

“Love you, Mama, see you soon,” he says.   
“Love you, too, Bub. Love you too, Margot,” Alana says, her voice warm and steady and bright and meaning every single word, so she can't say _see you soon_.   
And Alana smiles and waves with her pulse rushing in her ears as Margot strides with measured steps for their safe room. This can’t be happening. This can’t be the last time for either of those. Alana isn’t ready. Alana doesn't want it to be. 

Alana takes the letter from her jacket pocket, where it has sat burning her skin through the fabric of her shirt since she put it there. She downs the rest of Margot’s whisky, pours another, and drinks deeply from that before she studies the envelope. 

The paper of the handmade envelope is thick, cream-colored, and textured with a soft weave of threads. There is, of course, no return address but for the initials UHL in the top left corner. She tears open the envelope, mindful of the paper inside. She fishes it out, spreads it flat on the counter before her, and finishes the whisky before she looks at it. The note is inscribed in blue-black fountain pen ink, with precise, frankly beautiful lettering.

_My Dear Morgan Alexander Nicholas Verger-Bloom,_

_We have not yet met, but we will. You seem a studious boy, even given the subject matter, and I congratulate you on the high marks you have earned thus far. To start well is to end well, and starting your academic career in this fashion is most auspicious. Your mothers are both capable, knowledgeable women, and I imagine you’ll cultivate deep and consuming interests in a wide variety of subjects. I implore you to indulge them; pursue those interests to their ends as they arise. Do not deny yourself pleasures. This life is a swift one, quickly ended, though summers are long and days may seem infinite. We ought to live as music, played soulfully and felt fully. I must recommend especially the harpsichord. It is an instrument relegated mostly to history, but each note sounds in its fullness, immediate and vibrant, its entire breadth captured in each instant of its tone. And thus, no matter how short or long a life may be, it is complete. The first grade will be different for you, yes, but difference allows us to refine ourselves against it. Embrace it, as you embrace your mothers._

_All of my best,_   
_Uncle Hannibal Lecter_

Alana reads it once, and then again. Her vision goes white, and then red, and white again. The hand holding the letter trembles and then stills. She becomes aware, slowly and by piecemeal, that she is profoundly, but cataclysmically furious. A fury elemental in its fathomless depth. She is what one might call bloodthirsty with how white-burning rage sings through her blood. 

How dare Hannibal presume to justify his actions to her son, dare to touch him, to know him, however slightly. The arrogance galls her, and fills Alana with a particular need to tear Hannibal to screaming pieces with her teeth. She checks her texts again. They’re narrowing it down, given time; different data specialists independently arriving to the same conclusion as the same information trickles in. Florence, or one of the small towns surrounding it. Fiesole. Montaione. Florence. Borgo San Lorenzo. Florence. San Casciano in Val di Pesa. 

They’re in fucking Italy. The audacity and hubris should astound her, but it’s Hannibal and Will.

  
Alana calls Jack. He picks up on the second ring, despite the late hour for him.   
“Alana?” His voice is sleep-logged, but swiftly coming around to alertness.   
“What’s happened?”  
“Jack. Hannibal sent a note to my son’s school. Just polite threats, promising that before he starts first grade I’ll be dead. They’re in Florence, or close by, because of course they are. A five-hour flight from us. For now.”

“Is your family safe?”  
“Yes, I’ll make sure of it. Make contact. Talk to them, Jack. See if Hannibal and Will can be talked off the ledge. If they can’t, everything I do is self-defense.”

The line crackles with the distance between them. This is the first they’ve spoken to each other in eighteen months.

“Will isn’t... with Hannibal, not really, if he’s alive,” Jack says, after a moment, where Alana thinks the call might have dropped. Alana finds she has absolutely no patience for this. She hears herself speaking harshly, viciously down the phone line.

“Jack, if they’re both alive, they’re together. Working to one purpose. You know that. You _fucking_ know that. Don’t be stupid. Don’t hide from it, don’t hide behind the people they were, don't hide behind the people you wanted them to be. If all of us don’t see them for _exactly_ what they are, what they’re capable of, there’s no hope for stopping them, and I won’t let that happen when it’s my family in the crosshairs. I’m giving you this chance, and if you’re going to fuck it up with feelings and platitudes and guilt, I won’t let you. I’ll— we’ll handle it ourselves, and you can sort out the aftermath,” she says, spitting the words out.

There’s another silence on the line. 

“I’ll catch the first flight to Italy. I’ll be in touch.”

  
Alana becomes aware that she is still preternaturally calm, and cold. Capable of really anything, even murder. She banks this feeling, carves off a thick piece of it, tucks it away for when it’s needed.

“Good. Thank you. Talk soon.” Alana ends the call. 

She sits, the letter before her, and can’t yet go to her family, to Morgan and Margot locked away and waiting for her in their safe room. 

She remembers a number suddenly, called unbidden to her mind. It was offered to her flirtatiously some years before. She dismissed it, then, as a gallows-humor joke during their conversation about alibis, and Will’s unhinged, feverish, completely implausible accusations. Even then, after Hannibal left for the day ahead, Alana had added it to her phone contacts and labeled it with a question mark. She texts that number now, but not before sending it out to her team to be traced.

_You’ll die before you meet my son. Let me be perfectly clear. If you try to, you will die choking on your own teeth, crying out in vain for Will as he meets his fate with you helpless to stop it, only able to witness it. You will die alone, and cold, and shivering. You will die knowing you failed Will._

She presses send before she can overthink it, debates pouring another few fingers of whisky. She abstains. The reply comes almost instantly.

_Will I?_

Alana’s heart stills in her chest. Her blood is suddenly ice, but the rage flowing like raw and divine lava through her veins thaws it before she can notice. She types out another message and then shuts off her phone, denying Hannibal the last word. She rises, and strides to meet Margot and their son.

_Devil take the hindmost._


	2. Un Petit Detante pour Parlement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little discussion after the events of “And Before Us, Only the Sun.”
> 
> (go ahead and read that first; I’ll wait.)

“You were right.”

It’s all Jack manages to say when Alana picks up and asks hello. Alana can hear the disillusionment and aching loss in his tone all the same.

“I’m sorry, Jack. For both of us,” she says, acknowledging the unspoken. 

They don’t talk long. They don’t inquire into how the other is doing. They schedule a meeting in Bethesda. Jack ends the call.

“As we thought,” Alana tells Margot, not offering any self-pity, “he— they are determined to kill me.” She sets the phone down, and the clatter of it against the counter feels unnaturally loud.

Margot is quiet, uncharacteristically so, sipping at her drink and mulling their scant options over. Morgan is asleep in his bed and they’re in the kitchen at the marble counter, leaning over their drinks like it’s a bar. It reminds Alana of nothing so much as the meeting that decided to kill Hannibal Lecter by the Dragon’s hand. Safer company, though.

“What defenses do we have?” Margot asks, thinking, mind casting for any foothold.

“What we have in place. I know they’re in Italy now, but they’ll go to ground since they’ve met with Jack,” Alana says dispassionately. 

“How did you find them before?”

“Hackers. Tech people used to reading data and extrapolating.”

“Can they watch them now? Follow the threads, see where they go? They have constants, you know. That’s how you found Hannibal and Bedelia— rest her soul— in Florence.”

“Hannibal doesn’t make the same mistake twice. They’re ghosts, Margot. They’ll disappear entirely until they show up on our doorstep.”

“No. They’re men. Two men, moving through customs and airports and countries who love—who love the arts and dogs and murder. Two men who love each other. That’s enough to start with. To track them.”

“And if we find them?” Alana indulges the train of thought, listening.

“We hunt them down into the dirt. Like they’ll hunt us.” Margot holds her gaze, something bloody there.

“So when we find them, what then, send a— a hitman?” she says, half-joking.

Margot considers, draining her glass. 

“What do we want, Alana? Not pretty things, we have them,” she says with a faint smile, “We could do whatever we please, go anywhere we like, when the threat is gone.”

“Peace.”

“And it’ll cost. But maybe one will get lucky.” Margot speaks of someone else’s miserable death so easily it would take Alana’s breath away. But they’re on the same page, and once she herself was willing to sacrifice Will.

“You think a hitman will get lucky, when it’s Hannibal?”

“When it’s Hannibal and Will,” Margot offers.

“If—“ and Alana can’t finish the sentence. It’s too much loss. She swallows, amends her words. “If we find them, and hunt them, and our hunter fails, how do we protect ourselves?”

“We know him. We know Will. We exploit them. Use them against each other, or make them think we’ll be so stupid as to do that.”

“Hannibal always assumed he was the smartest in the room. Probably more so, now that Will’s with him.” It sounds like hesitant pessimism, even to her own ears. 

“He’s already coming for us, baby. Now, or sometime soon. He made the first move with that letter. He’ll expect us to hide, to try and go to ground. After all, that’s... exactly what we did, isn’t it?” Margot is thoughtful, thumb running along the lip of her glass, her eyes staring unseeing at the whorls of stone in their counter. 

Alana doesn’t have anything to say to that. She sips her drink, wishing it had answers and not a timer running out.

“We’re the same. Not— the same. Two sides of the same coin,” Margot murmurs to herself. “What we need is us, nothing more. We can buy anything, go anywhere, but we need us. We need room to be us, to breathe. When we can’t get that, even running, we...” Margot laughs, sharp and ill-humored, “we address it head-on.”

Margot looks at Alana, something dark in her eyes; something that reminds Alana of dogs flushing rabbits out of their warren into the jaws of waiting foxes. Margot’s never looked so much like Mason.

“We press them. We find them and press them and hound them until they’re jumping at shadows on the wall. Until they feel hunted. In the day and in the night, not even their home a safe haven. Until they’re desperate. And then they’ll seek us out,” Margot says with conviction. Her eyes a dark and absent fire, seeing a future Alana can’t.“They’ll ask to talk.”

Alana hears the truth ringing there, the realisation dawning in her voice as she speaks: 

“A stalemate. We know them, and they’ll have come to know us. What we’re capable of, when we’ve leveled the playing field.”

“Why shouldn’t we come to an agreement, if we all want to live in peace with what we’ve earned?”

“Because Hannibal made a promise,” Alana says, and it’s defeated. 

“Yeah, he did. When he thought he was alone and the best he could hope for was a lonely death with no one to notice him gone. But it’s different now. He has Will and Will has him. This is an arms race between us. No one would survive it, if one side fires,” Margot says. 

“Are we taking the nuclear option?” Alana says, smiling a mirthless smile painted in red.

“If we do, we lose. But they do too, just the same,” she says softly, so softly into her glass. “They want what they have too much to give it up for us.”

Margot falls silent. She stands, refills her glass, and drains it before she meets Alana’s gaze.

“You never did mean as much to him as Will,” Margot says, and it’s not bitter, or cruel, though it could be.

Alana could even find herself grateful for that, if it’s true. 

“He’ll need a way to consider the promise fulfilled,” she replies, after some time, “His ego won’t let him back down from that.”

“Where he can say he’s killed you?” 

“Where he can say he’s beaten me.”

“Where he can say he’s brokered the terms of peace,” Margot says.

Alana sips her drink, runs her tongue across the drop of wine left on her lip.

“We just need him to come to our terms, thinking they’re his,” she says, half to herself. 

“Two sailors on an island,” Margot says, lifting her brow. 

“That was a fairy tale I made up for Morgan,” Alana says.

“Even so, everyone had their peace.”

“And they were so happy and could have been friends,” Alana murmurs, an aching note in her tone. 

“So?” Margot presses, leaning in, anticipation quickening her words, “We find them, and hunt them with no expectation but a chat ending in a compromise.”

Alana mulls over the fantasy meeting. She imagines Will and Hannibal sat across from them, blood-spattered, desperate, and probably earnest. Coming to an agreement. Shaking hands with them. The scalpel hidden in Hannibal’s shirt cuff.

“We take guns. We practice. We keep ten feet between us and them. If either of them flinch, we kill them where they stand, no matter what they say,” Alana says, resolute.

“So what next?”

“We find them, and in the meantime, hire some bad hitmen.”

**Author's Note:**

> The dishes at the restaurant are based off ones once available at The Greenhouse in Dublin.
> 
> Alana and Margot’s password is two lines from “In the Valley of the Elwy” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The whole work is rather fitting and also quite beautiful.
> 
> “And Before Us Only the Sun” fits between chapters 1 and 2.


End file.
